“Enterprise management applications” (“EMAs”) refer generally to a class of computer systems that organizations use to manage their operations. For example, to generate a purchase order or invoice in the course of an organization's business, the organization may compel their employees to engage an EMA and enter appropriate information representing the transaction to be performed. The EMA not only would generate the purchase order or invoice in question, it would validate the transaction being performed to ensure that it complies with predetermined procedural controls established by the organization and also would record data representing the transaction for integration with its financial applications, among others.
Availability Control (“AVC”) systems perform one such validation operation. AVC systems validate expenditure transactions (e.g., purchase orders, vendor payments, payroll payments and the like) by comparing them to organizational budgetary requirements before validating the transaction. In this regard, the operation of EMA systems is well known.
Conventional AVC systems do not operate on revenue-generating transactions. For example, if an organization were to generate a customer invoice for performance of some service, no AVC check is performed because most organizations accept revenue from whatever sources are available.
Some organizations, however, particularly public sector organizations or non-governmental organizations (NGOs), are not free to accept revenue from any source that becomes available to it. Public sector organizations for public policy reasons, legislative proscription or other reasons, may choose to limit revenue that they receive to within predetermined limits. For example, a public sector organization may own some piece of equipment (e.g., a wind tunnel). If the organization were established for purposes of academic research, it may choose to lease use of the equipment to others to help sustain its operations. At the same time, it may choose to limit revenues it earns from such leases to remain faithful to its charter as an organization devoted to research.
In another example, an NGO may solicit grants from various donor organizations to support its operations. At the same time, the organization may limit the grant revenue that it receives from any single donor to maintain independence from that donor organization.
The inventors perceive a need in the art for an EMA system that manages revenues as they are received by an organization to compare them with predetermined requirements established for the organization.